The Effects of Complex Respiratory Exercise Therapy on Diaphragmatic Thickness and Auxiliary Respiratory Muscle Activity of Stroke Patients

This study aimed to examine the effects of complex respiratory exercise therapy on diaphragmatic thickness and the auxiliary respiratory muscle activity of stroke patients.

The study aims to investigate the effect of complex breathing exercises on diaphragm thickness and respiratory muscle activity on the paretic and nonparetic sides of stroke patients and provide basic clinical data.

A clinical sample of 30 patients with Stroke was randomly assigned to either the Experimental Group (n=15), which underwent complex respiratory exercises, or the Control Group (n=15), which served neurodevelopmental treatment alone. The intervention comprised four 40-minute sessions per week for six weeks, followed by a post-test after the six weeks. And compare intra-group variations, a paired t-test was employed, while ANCOVA was used for inter-group variations.

Concerning intra-group changes, in the case of the experimental group, significant differences appeared in the diaphragm thickness and all muscles on the paretic and nonparetic sides (p<0.01) (p<0.001). In the case of the control group, significant increases in muscle activity appeared only in the rectus abdominis muscle and the external oblique abdominal muscle on the paretic and nonparetic sides (p<0.05) (p<0.01). Concerning differences between the groups, there were significant differences in the thickness of the diaphragm on the paretic and nonparetic sides, the muscle activity of only the sternocleidomastoid muscle on the paretic side, and the sternocleidomastoid muscle, the rectus abdominis muscle, and the external oblique abdominal muscle on the nonparetic side (p<0.05) (p<0.01) (p<0.001).

Complex breathing exercises were found to increase the thickness of the diaphragm and improve the respiratory muscles safely and effectively in stroke patients. Therefore, it is thought that complex breathing exercises can be used as an effective intervention method to improve breathing in stroke patients. Therefore, more diverse studies using complex breathing exercises are needed.